Online Education Blog

Our blogs discuss issues pertaining to the Education community for both educators and parents.

"I hate reading." "I'm not a good reader." "I'm a stupid reader." "I wish I didn't have to read..." As a reading specialist, those are the responses I often get from struggling readers when I ask them how they feel about reading, what they think about themselves as readers, or what they wish for. Those negative responses to reading make sense for my struggling readers; because they read two, three, or even four grade levels below their current school grades, reading is a daunting task for them. But how about high-achieving kids, or kids who don't struggle with reading? Why might they feel like they're "stupid readers"?

The What Works Clearinghouse has recently released the results of several studies of early elementary reading programs, giving some accolades and others heavy criticism. It comes as no surprise, however, that no one program was effective for teaching all reading students...

For decades, the amount of "quality reading" in which children engage has been of vast concern for parents and educators alike. The idea is that the more children read novels and quality literature, the better readers they become; the better prepared they are for college; and the better chance they have of succeeding in the world when they grow up...

Elementary school teachers in Vail, Colorado have got it right! According to an article in Vail Daily, this year elementary teachers spent the first two days of school administering a one-on-one reading assessment to all of their students.

Measures like DIBELS, SRI, or MAPS are the result of schools and districts wanting to predict how their students will do on specific state standardized tests. Will scores go up this year? Will they go down? The companies that publish these tests focus much of their energy on studies that show how scores compare to a "normalized" population, as well as on potentially specific assessments.

Recent studies are showing us two facts. According to a recent study by the Center on Education Policy, math and reading are being taught MORE during the school day in 62% of America’s school districts, often at the expense of other subjects like science, social studies, and the arts. But progress in raising math and reading scores has actually decreased since the passing of No Child Left Behind instead of going up, according to a study published in the Educational Researcher, despite the increased “back-to-the-basics” emphasis. So if we’re teaching more reading and math, why are our students’ test scores not improving? Why are the gaps in achievement not narrowing? Perhaps we’re teaching the wrong things....